An Autonomous System (AS) typically refers to a set of network elements under a single technical administration. An AS may be assigned one or more set of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which are used to uniquely identify each network element within the AS. Network elements, such as routers, use communication protocols to facilitate transmission of packets between one another. Such transmission of packets creates network flows, where a network flow refers to a stream of packets transmitted between a source network element and destination network element. A network flow is often defined by a tuple including information that uniquely identifies attributes of the source, destination, and communication protocol (e.g., a tuple may include each of a source IP address, a destination IP address, a source port number, a destination port number, and a network protocol). In hop-by-hop packet routing systems, which make up the vast majority of current Internet Protocol (IP) routing systems, a network flow may traverse many network elements during routing from a source to a destination.
When network errors, such a packet loss, occur, a network administrator can identify a cause of the error by utilizing network analysis tools to monitor/measure capabilities (e.g., address of each router on path of network flow, bandwidth capacity, utilization, router status logs, and the like) for a particular network flow on a hop-by-hop basis. Such network analysis tools provide useful troubleshooting information within a single network and/or within a single AS. However, administrative boundaries between Autonomous Systems (AS's) limit a network analysis tool's access to such capabilities and, therefore, pose a technical challenge to troubleshooting errors in network flows that traverse more than one AS.